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| President Hunter Rawlings addresses the joint meeting of university trustees and councillors in Statler Auditorium, Oct. 29. Charles Harrington/University Photography |
Cornell President Hunter Rawlings last week lauded the university's considerable achievements over the past year and challenged members of the Cornell community to help the university "take a leading role in higher education's search for a more cohesive paradigm for this new century."
He also announced a major new investment in Cornell's athletic programs -- the gift of $15 million in endowment funds, as a challenge match, from Hank and Nancy Bartels, both members of the Class of 1948. The gift is on behalf of the Bartels family, including their sons Ken and Phil, Rawlings said in his annual State of the University message Oct. 27. Phil Bartels graduated in the class of 1971, Rawlings added.
"In gratitude for their generosity, which comes at a critical time in the development of our athletic programs, we will be naming the Cornell Field House 'Bartels Hall,'" Rawlings said.
Addressing members of the Cornell Board of Trustees and the Cornell University Council gathered in the Alice Statler Auditorium during their joint annual meeting, he noted that the Bartels already have helped improve the undergraduate experience at Cornell through gifts across a broad spectrum, including the Bartels World Affairs Fellows Program, the Shoals Marine Laboratory and athletics.
Rawlings thanked trustees, council members and alumni at large for again demonstrating their loyalty to the university. "This year alone, Cornell alumni organized more than 800 events on Cornell's behalf around the world and helped us raise $528 million in new gifts and commitments. This is a new record for Cornell and one that puts us second in the nation in this dimension," he said.
Looking to the present and the future, he noted that it is a "time of unusual opportunity and promise. The remarkable convergence of the physical and biological sciences across a wide spectrum of research is the most exciting intellectual development of the early 21st century."
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| Members of the Bartels family, from left, Hank '48, Nancy '48 and Phil '71 are joined by former athletic director Charles Moore following the president's speech, in which he announced that the Field House will be named Bartels Hall. Charles Harrington/University Photography |
Rawlings said Cornell is uniquely positioned to maintain its reputation as a world-class research university by building strength in strategic enabling areas.
"Physics and biology have converged to create the discipline of biophysics. Computer science and biology are joining forces in bioinformatics. Engineering and biology have combined in the new field of nanobiotechnology. Chemistry and biology are uniting as chemical biology. These alliances promise to bring new coherence to our understanding of the biological and physical world, to yield new materials and to find application in everything from agricultural production to human health. Thanks to faculty initiative and some judicious investment Cornell is well positioned for leadership in these new fields."
He enumerated several examples of that initiative:
Rawlings noted initiatives in other areas that will help ensure Cornell's position of leadership:
Rawlings emphasized that the arts, humanities and social sciences also "have a critical place in an intellectually vibrant university." He pointed to the dedication Oct. 27 of Lincoln Hall, for music; the renovation of Tjaden Hall for the Department of Art; plans for Milstein Hall for architecture; and the upcoming renovation of Bailey Hall for performance space, as testimony to the university's commitment to the arts and humanities -- "particularly as they relate to the education of undergraduates," he said.
That commitment to the arts and humanities extends well beyond facilities to academic programs, Rawlings noted. He pointed to a new program in visual studies, which is now in its start-up phase in the College of Arts and Sciences; the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, for which Cornell was selected by Time magazine and the Princeton Review as "College of the Year"; and a new approach to integrate language teaching more fully into the intellectual life of the university -- to create communities where languages, literature and culture intersect.
Commenting on the role of higher education in our society, he noted that "the social sciences and humanities perform a deep and essential role that goes to the heart of universities and to the heart of individual women and men. ... A work of art, history or literature, when 'read' by an informed observer, contains within itself a kind of knowledge that is different from other kinds that depend upon the incremental buildup of information: it has a human, moral dimension at its center. ...
"In the final analysis, the development of moral knowledge demands that each of us answer the ultimate Socratic question: 'Who am I, and what should I do with my life.' In universities, we should not forget, a major part of our obligation is to help 18-year-olds answer that question."
Rawlings said many Cornell courses already address ethical issues in great depth, and momentum is building on campus to encourage greater attention to moral reasoning in our future curriculum.
He quoted Philip Lewis, the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, in sketching a vision of the ideal university of the future. "In his words, the university should 'assume an exemplary role in society and culture at large; it should undertake to position itself not simply as a research machine, but also as a micro-community devoted to exemplifying ... humane and artful values and thus to building a research community that is compatible with them.'"
Rawlings said that if any university is capable of fulfilling that vision, it is Cornell. In concluding, he challenged Cornellians to help build on their university to achieve that vision.
"It is now our task to look afresh at the educational structure of the modern university, particularly by engaging our faculty in serious discussions about the role their disciplines can play in creating a new curricular synthesis. If we succeed, and I have some confidence that we can, Cornell will take a leading role in higher education's search for a more cohesive paradigm for this new century.
"A great university is more than the sum of its individually excellent parts. It is an intellectual feast of remarkable variety created by its individual members -- scientists and humanists, social scientists and professional school faculty -- each of whom brings something important to the table. It is an intellectual community of extraordinary depth and breadth, where living and learning take place across a great diversity of backgrounds. It requires the concerted efforts of faculty and students, staff and alumni working together for its constant renewal. It is, in short, the kind of university we have in Cornell."
The full text of the president's address can be found on the web at www.news.cornell.edu/campus/stateofuniv0010.html.
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